Author
Topic: Common Walls (Read 5269 times)

Demons are everywhere now. Little invisible trickster spirits. All you have to do is hear about one of them and they copy themselves into your head.

Everybody's head is full of demons. Thousands of them. Most of them sit there quietly until they're activated. You might be on the phone, catching up with an old friend, and she references a time you two went out to see a movie. All of the sudden the demon comes out. It says, "Did you hear they're making another Batman movie?"

That wasn't me talking. A demon said that sentence. I remember when it first possessed me. I was in the living room, my friend was playing the new Batman video game and he said "Did you hear they're making another Batman movie?"

This demon was able to work my brain's control panel so easily because his buddy already has a superuser password. That one entered me while I was reading reading Batman comics as a kid, visualizing what it'd be like to be Batman - rich, mysterious, smart as a whip, empowered... It really spoke to me, to the me I wanted to be. And now that demon is holding the door open for other Batman demons. When the movie comes out, Batman will have access to my bank account.

I started wondering how I can get rid of these demons posessing me. And I started to wonder how Batman would do it. Maybe he'd go into the batcave and use his computer to collect information on them. Maybe he'd make a list of all his demons and knock them out one by one, committing each one to Arkham Asylum.

Then Batman goes back to the cave and Alfred says, "You are meeting so-and-so for dinner tonight." And Batman realizes that Alfred is a demon too.

And Batman realizes that Bruce Wayne is a demon too.

If Batman realized that HE was a demon, would he check himself into Arkham Asylum? And then he stops and I wonder:

"Get offa me, you freaks! This is not North Korea. No. This is America, and I expect to be PAID for that sort of nonsense. In advance. No credit...Cash on the barrelhead or GTFO. I swear to God, there's nothing more annoying than commie perverts who don't understand the intrinsic value of the free market system."

yeah, we're diverging a bit, which is 100% okay. After I read LMNO's piece and Roger's pieces, mine sort of tumbled out. It's in step with the first BIP pamphlet I think. Right now, during the brainstorm phase, it's best to just throw everything we can against the wall and hold nothing back.

For my part, I'm trying to avoid a trap I fall into where I write pieces that are basically passages from a self help manual. I don't want to just blast "advice" at people. Every so often I read a piece that I wrote, and it concludes with a vague phrase like "learn to swim", and I wonder how useful that advice really is when phrased that way. My current thinking is that narrative, parables, and imagery can deliver the same information as a straight "advice" piece but some of the defenses people build against persuasion techniques.

"Get offa me, you freaks! This is not North Korea. No. This is America, and I expect to be PAID for that sort of nonsense. In advance. No credit...Cash on the barrelhead or GTFO. I swear to God, there's nothing more annoying than commie perverts who don't understand the intrinsic value of the free market system."

yeah, we're diverging a bit, which is 100% okay. After I read LMNO's piece and Roger's pieces, mine sort of tumbled out. It's in step with the first BIP pamphlet I think. Right now, during the brainstorm phase, it's best to just throw everything we can against the wall and hold nothing back.

For my part, I'm trying to avoid a trap I fall into where I write pieces that are basically passages from a self help manual. I don't want to just blast "advice" at people. Every so often I read a piece that I wrote, and it concludes with a vague phrase like "learn to swim", and I wonder how useful that advice really is when phrased that way. My current thinking is that narrative, parables, and imagery can deliver the same information as a straight "advice" piece but some of the defenses people build against persuasion techniques.

Gods, I hope mine didn't come across that way, if it did I will remove it right away!

"Get offa me, you freaks! This is not North Korea. No. This is America, and I expect to be PAID for that sort of nonsense. In advance. No credit...Cash on the barrelhead or GTFO. I swear to God, there's nothing more annoying than commie perverts who don't understand the intrinsic value of the free market system."

Gods, I hope mine didn't come across that way, if it did I will remove it right away!

oh no way dude! I'm just reflecting on my own writing style. In another life, somebody started calling me "preacher dan" because I was always spouting advice at people. It's a part of me I try to mute because it leads to stuffy guru moments.

Gods, I hope mine didn't come across that way, if it did I will remove it right away!

oh no way dude! I'm just reflecting on my own writing style. In another life, somebody started calling me "preacher dan" because I was always spouting advice at people. It's a part of me I try to mute because it leads to stuffy guru moments.

“The sound shivers through the walls, through the table, through the window frame, and into my finger. These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics. Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed... and this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.” Chuck Palahniuk

Everyone is so worried about Big Brother watching. People spend hours every day wasting time and energy on the worry that someone might see something. Bi-peds hold their privacy so close, it is as important to them as air.

Maybe that is the problem. Everyone is so worried about who might see something they stopped concerning themselves with what they are or are not seeing. See Big Brother isn’t watching us, we are watching him.

Few are safe, because humanity has become addicted to watching everyone else, they’ve forgotten that there are traps they cannot see. They don’t think about the things that once seen cannot be unseen. So they watch.

What are those Kardashians up to today?

Who’s left in the Big Brother house?

Is Lindsey Lohan back in jail?

Who will be the NEXT American Idol?

While humanity is distracted with trivial interests like this, Big Brother, he’s kicking ass in every corner no one is looking. While so many were worried about some little girl falling off a stage last night on American Idol, 28 people were killed and another 235 wounded in Syria.

While everyone is watching everyone else’s status on Facebook, a couple was killed in Tennessee for un-friending another woman. The couple’s eight month old baby was found in its dead mother’s arms.

While Obama caves on the birth control issue and the Catholic church continues with it’s go forth and multiply message, proven by the average daily births worldwide of 353,015, no one stops to wonder what happens when there is just no more room.

Is it possible that we need to stop looking at the obvious and find out what the obvious is hiding behind its back?